by Karen Sourek

“He went to bed with Mario on his mind. In the morning, he went to his parents the next day to ask who this was because this person had the same last name. Antonio’s parents looked at each other with nervous looks on their faces, but obviously they had to tell him the truth about his brother who sailed to the island and never came back home when he was three months old.”

Long ago there was a forbidden island. Whoever went there never came back, so everyone’s parents were overprotective of their children. Then the rumor came to Milan, that the island was cursed 100 years ago and that no one would come back. The best sailor there named Mario Write wanted to prove that this was just a myth, but that was 10 years ago. He left his brother Antonio when he was just born, less than three months old. Antonio was raised as an only child until he turned 13. That’s when Antonio figured out he had an older brother. It was a nice cloudy day and the ocean was a little wavy, when Antonio saw a bump in the sand. He didn’t pay attention to it at first, but it kept bothering him. He went over to step on it to flatten it out, but it just did not go down, so he decided to dig it out. He tried to dig it out, but it didn’t budge. When he did dig it out, he knew it was a bottle with some scroll of paper inside it. It was too dark to read the letter, but he was so excited to read this note. Antonio was hoping to find some ancient map to treasure. So he went home and opened it with a little bit of struggle to get the paper out, but he got it out eventually. It read:

Dear Antonio,

You may not know me. Please sail to the forbidden island and save me from this beauty. I really want to meet you and know how our family is. Don’t have time to talk, bye.

Mario Wright

He went to bed with Mario on his mind. In the morning, he went to his parents the next day to ask who this was because this person had the same last name. Antonio’s parents looked at each other with nervous looks on their faces, but obviously they had to tell him the truth about his brother who sailed to the island and never came back home when he was three months old. Antonio was so raged that his parents did not tell him this that his eyes lit up and he stormed to his room. In a few hours, his mom came knocking on his bedroom door asking why he was asking and why he was so mad. He explained everything about the beach. Antonio said he was mad because they should have told him, that he had an older brother who was missing. So he decided to go because he knew he would survive. He didn’t know when to go, and he was going to future sailors camp soon. Antonio thought that if he started planning later, he would be too late. The next letter Antonio received said:

Dear Antonio,

There is a lot of important information to save this city from dying here. You have to arrive on Halloween, so everyone can leave. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumor that the island is cursed, well that’s true. Every day except Halloween we all think the island is beautiful. On Halloween we think the island is hideous because it is supposed to be the scariest day in the year, so we see the bad side of the island.

*DO NOT LEAVE YOUR SHIP. THEN IT WILL SINK AND GO TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN AND YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET IT BACK!

(More information on how to get the ship next time.)

Mario

He spent his time at camp with his friends, so he could be the (next) best sailor. He had not told his friends that he had a brother. He figured out how to get the money for the ship, but did not know which boat to buy. In the meantime, Antonio paid a lot of attention to his camp so that there might be some useful information. He was warned not to go anywhere from Woody Pier. That was a big warning, and Antonio got some ideas from that. He had so much fun in camp he almost forgot about his brother, but the next class he had was about the forbidden island. Antonio did not learn anything since Mario used to be a teacher on the forbidden island. That’s what reminded him. Antonio was stressed that he had to focus on two things at once and could not ask anyone because they would say he just should stay home, so this task was up to him. If he wanted to be the hero, he could work hard and get everyone back, and if he didn’t want to risk getting stuck on the island like everyone else too, he would have to stay and feel guilty.

His friends didn’t believe him that he was going to save everyone on the island. They all tried to convince him to stay saying, “You’re too young. What if you get lost.” They couldn’t convince him to stay. He went to check the beach the next day. Disappointingly, there was nothing there. Antonio thought he did something wrong. Maybe he was supposed to send a letter back. He was so frustrated he wanted to break something. Antonio went back to camp to analyze all the different letters he received. When he was about to put away the last letter he received, he saw something on the back. He could not make out what it said, so he decided to go to bed and think about it. The next morning, Antonio felt sick, so he went to the nurse. He did have a cold, but he decided that was a good thing because he could find out what was on the back of the letter. He went to his room and traced the letters so they became brighter, but he could not make out some of the words. What it said was:

Dear Antonio,

This is faded because this is classified information. I know this is very hard to read, but get the money for the ship from Mom’s old wine. It will be more than enough money for that. But a good ship should be 45 ft. long and should have three sails. To get here you need to leave of Woody Pier and go straight for two and a half hours.